1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for processing an image obtained in an ophthalmologic apparatus configured to observe, image, and to measure an eye to be inspected, and to a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, there are various types of opthalmological instruments using an optical instrument. For instance, as an optical instrument for observing an eye, there are used various instruments such as an anterior eye part imaging instrument, a fundus camera, a confocal laser scanning opthalmoscope (scanning laser opthalmoscope: SLO), and the like. In particular, an optical tomographic imaging apparatus, which performs optical coherence tomography (OCT) utilizing an interference phenomenon of multi-wavelength light, is an apparatus capable of obtaining a tomographic image of a sample with high resolution. For this reason, the optical tomographic imaging apparatus is becoming an indispensable apparatus as an opthalmological instrument for a specialist of retina in the outpatient field. The optical tomographic imaging apparatus is hereinafter referred to as an OCT apparatus.
The OCT apparatus is capable of splitting measuring light having low coherence into reference light and measuring light, and irradiating an object to be inspected with the measuring light to cause return light from the object to be inspected to interfere with the reference light, to thereby measure a layer of the object to be inspected. Further, the OCT apparatus can obtain a tomographic image with high resolution by scanning the measuring light on the sample. Therefore, the tomographic image of a retina of the fundus of the eye to be inspected is acquired to be widely used for ophthalmologic diagnosis of the retina and the like.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-209166 proposes a general ophthalmologic apparatus in which the OCT scans the fundus by moving a galvanometer mirror based on a scan pattern designated by an operator.
During diagnosis of the eye to be inspected, for example, there are cases where the thickness of each layer at an intended part or in the vicinity thereof based on the tomographic image of the retina layer or the like is required as accompanying information. There has been known a method of arranging a sector for determining a plurality of regions in the fundus image, and displaying an average layer thickness in each region in the sector, to thereby meet the demand.
However, a method of adaptively displaying, along with the movement of the sector, the tomographic image at a position at which the sector is located is unknown, and it has been difficult to compare, when the sector is moved to a given position, the layer thickness in the region in which the sector is arranged and the tomographic image at the position at which the sector is arranged.